camping - stress maker or reliever?

posted by Eskielover
I once got chigger bites in a very personal area after sitting on a mossy stump. Am chuckling at the idea of apply mud to the are!

LOL....I have learned over the years (actually since I was 5 years old on vacation to my grandparents house in Kansas) that chigger's ONLY bite in VERY PERSONAL AREAS.

We were all Californians that had no idea what chiggers were so going to Kansas where they were prolific was a shock & we had no idea that they even had chiggers until we laid a blanket down next to Lake Shawnee to have a picnic lunch. I ended up covered with bites. A 5 year old covered in those bites was unbelievably uncomfortable & they had no idea what in the world they were until going to the pharmacy to try & find help for me. Sitting through church that next day was impossible. The chigger itch is worse than any other kind of torture IMO especially when covered in them.

I actually asked when I moved here to KY if they had chiggers so I would know if I needed to cover myself in bug spray. LOL....think the guy I asked who was painting my house had no idea what I was asking (he had that thick KY accent....sort of like Gomer Pyle). I couldn't understand him & he couldn't understand me. I found out the hard way that YES, KY has chiggers too. Yes, they all bit me in VERY PERSONAL AREAS. One time when out in my yard checking on the alpaca I was keeping to help clear out my back yard, I ended up with over 100 chigger bites.....not only in the personal places but covered my body. I actually got sick from all those bites besides the torture of their itching.....most miserable time of my life.

A few weeks ago, I knew better than cross my field that had been covered in Queen Anne's Lace (better known as Chigger weed) before my friend bush hogged the field.....but I saw a deer come bounding through the field after getting home & sitting in my truck a few minutes gathering my stuff together. Not thinking decided to cross the field to see into my woods.....by the next morning found at least a dozen chigger bites that drove me crazy for 2 weeks. My friend that bush hogged in shorts was eaten alive by them. I knew better than not use bug spray but hey, sometimes the brain shuts off from logic & curiosity takes over only to regret it later on.....& NO, no using MUD on those bite locations.....though I found that Arnica gel is not bad along with another itch reliever I bought from CVS that is specifically for itching bug bites but it doesn't work good like MUD

Eskie, I found totally by accident that Avon Skin So Soft takes the misery out of fire ant bites. It would be kind of mess in personal areas, but I wonder if it would work on chigger bites? Also learned that Benadryl ointment takes the itch out of bite reactions. Again, kind of messy, but if it works....

I had to google what these little lovelies are. cringe.

It is the 'Tick' we have to worry about here. They too like warm and hairy body parts. cringe again.

I hate camping. I do like travel and we just came back from our honeymoon. Nope, it wasn't camping

I love nature and outdoors though

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Congratulations Divine ......so glad you had a wonderful honeymoon.

LOL..you not camping honeymoon made me think back many years ago (1975) to my honeymoon. H wasn't good at planning anything but his aunt & uncle gave us the use of their trailer out in the middle of nowhere. No running water except for the stream in back of the trailer & it had a porta potty inside but in a place with just a curtain hung around it. It wasn't outside camping but it was as close as you can get. Good thing I didnt mind.....he started the honeymoon off wrong by not even making a reservation at a hotel the night we were leaving after the wedding & we had a difficult time finding any hotel that could take us at that time of year. Looking back it was just another symptom of what was really going on with him...but no one even knew about that stuff then.

Justafriend.....Oh we have ticks all over my farm. I am forever picking them off my dogs & off of me & finding them in placed in my house that make me You can feel them crawling on you after working out in the field or the yard. Had one the other day that had just started to bite as it was a little tug to get it off. Most I can get them off as they are still just crawling trying to find a place to bite. The horses get them all the time also. We pull them off their legs constantly after trail riding through the grass fields worse than through the woods.

LizardLady.....I've used Benedryl cream before......I can use the cream but am allergic to the pills or what's in the pills. I usually use cortisone cream but really found that itch spray from CVS I bought a few years ago works better than anything though this time I did try using arnica gel on them & they seemed to heal up quicker than the other chigger bites which seemed to last weeks.

LOL...I was riding a few weeks ago & got bit by a horse fly on my knee.....dang thing. It started off just a little red dot & grew into a huge welt & itched bad too. The scab from that just finally went away & it still is left with a slight itch. I don't blame horses that go off bucking when bit by one after this experience.

Yes, the wilds are full of icky bugs. I took a photo & put it on FB the other day of a huge almost 2 inch beetle that had managed to get inbetween the windows of my storm door that I had lowered for the upper window to become a screen. It had huge looking pinchers on it's head.....YUCK. We also have what they call cow killer red velvet ants here. Actually wingless wasps. The female has wings but the mail just looks like a huge red velvet ant but their sting is horrible which is why it's called a cow killer. Never know what you are going to come across living on a farm......like the skunk that greeted me when I came home the other night.

LOL...no need to vacation or camp in the country when you are living in it.

Thank you Eskie and what a story about all these bugs!!!

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Another classic disgusting camping pest - leeches. I once on hiking had to do a water crossing. I emerged on the otherside covered in the things

i've thought about taking the family camping but it would be new to me, the only time I ever went camping was back in girl scouts, and I didn't particularly like it then.
It is appealing as a way to spend a vacation without spending as much as a hotel.
It is not appealing because of bugs, no electric, no a/c, no plumbing. I am scared of the dark and bears.
So we haven't gone camping and I don't plan to. We are lucky enough to live in the woods as it is, so it pretty much feels like camping when you step out the front door, minus the roughing it aspect.
All due respect though to those that camp and enjoy it. It has never been a skill set I've been able to master.

Camping really isn't all that cheap the first time out actually. It takes an investment in collecting gear. I admit though I lucked out. My garage was like a military stores - full of gear that ought to have been turned in on release and far too much to begin with. Why would one soldier need 6 air mattresses and that sort of thing? In the split I somehow ended up with it. Hence most of my equipment is olive green.

I do recommend a quality tent though. You can get them extraordinarily cheap but you get what you pay for. Look for 'taped' seams and a high number repellant rating (kind of like a thread count for the nylon). If you can, buy a tent with a full sized fly that comes straight to the ground - this is probably the most important. Finally, discard the stakes that came with the tent and purchase instead a heavy duty set. Now you're all set. Have fun